Exploring SF - Part 1

We tried to time our arrival to SF to avoid too much traffic - noonish seemed a good bet, but the traffic on Hwy 101 was pretty steady. Unfortunately, the top of the Golden Gate Bridge was nearly obscured in fog and it was showering as we drove across it. Still pretty impressive. The Rough Guide says there are several suicides each month from this bridge.....

We had planned to find a cheap motel just into the City not far from the bridge. That worked out very well. A place to park the Beast off the street, and access to the parts of the City we wanted to see. Plus hot water, a shower... We had planned to get transit passes and get around that way, but our first few hours had us re-thinking that idea. We were able to hike from the motel to Fisherman's Wharf in a reasonable time, skies had cleared up and we were able to get some exercise, so perhaps we'll mostly walk. Maybe just take the bus when we're too tired to limp our way back to the motel.

Our first route took us through one of the yuppie-zone residential areas and along the waterfront to the Fisherman's Wharf part of the city. We had views of the GG Bridge and the island of Alcatraz. By the time we "arrived" we were getting pretty hungry, it being after 4 pm and the last food I remember being the bran flakes breakfast quite a few hours ago. So the first priority was to start inspecting menus at various restaurants and pubs that we passed. We settled on Joe's Crab Shack - it seemed suitably down-scale for us, prices were reasonable and although our waiter was a bit more enthusiastic than suited our reserved Canadian natures, the food was very good. A fisherman's platter, blackened talapia and some local brews really improved our outlooks.

By the time we were finished and found a few T-shirts and postcards, it was getting dusky, so we started heading back to our lodgings. On the way, we managed to navigate ourselves into an area with one of the steepest and twistiest (is that a word?) streets in the city followed by a steady hike for a couple of miles along Lombard St back "home".

That and a few hours updating e-mail, photo albums, Facebook and chatting on Skype with Scott in NJ pretty much finished off the day.